There is something so precious about the act of writing. Not typing. Writing. The feel of the pen between fingers. The bleed of the ink through the paper’s fibrous veins. The onslaught of thoughts seeking to structure and align themselves in the moments as the pen hangs in limbo above the paper. The words spilling from the tip of the mind, tongue and pen onto the page erasing its stark whiteness as the hand invokes the page’s limitlessness and its refusal to criticize.

As for my grand declaration of my intention to write, fits and spurts best describes my willingness to actually do so. I have the best intentions to write but find myself far too easily distracted and with little (to no) discipline to stop, sit down, be quiet, think, and write. The result has been the incessant rolling around of words and ideas in my head. May I diligently write until the act of writing becomes a natural part of my expression and experience, something I can no longer ignore or do without.

It is June, and for a woman in her late twenties this means wedding season has officially begun. Again. This June falls in the middle of a year brimming with pairing offs, weddings, and babies; to the extent that my facebook feed typically includes at least one engagement and one pregnancy announcement per week. But this is to be expected.

It is my experience that life does not necessarily stabilize with age. But one uses certain anchors to keep from losing the way. For me community, comprised of my dearest friends and family, is the anchor I have relied on most since my career’s weight (read, demands) threatened to sink my boat – thankfully, just as my ship was about to go under, I cut myself loose of that deadly weight and watched it sink into the darkness beneath threatening waves. Friends’ marriages and expanding families significantly alter my community anchor’s shape, weight and ability to perform its designated task.

I celebrate my dearest friends’ joy as they pursue their lives and loves. I must, however, admit that I am weary of losing friends. The loss is never intended, it is simply the bittersweet reality of changing lives and priorities. I am tired of my female friends’ post-nuptial one-year disappearing acts, and of the inevitable cessation of all meaningful connection with my male friends.

At least with my girl friends there is hope they will resurface at some point. But when it comes to guy friends and marriage everything changes. The intimacies (which were neither romantic nor sexual) that once girded the male-female friendship are sullied and deemed inappropriate for some reason, leaving an empty shell that once housed a robust friendship. A shell that sits like a dust-covered souvenir collected from a distant shore visited during, what feels like, another lifetime. With decreasing occurrence, the shell is dusted off by quick catch-ups at a mutual friend’s wedding or other social gathering, during which the shell appears to looks the same, but the function, which is everything, has changed. Only the calls of the distant shores remain in the calcified structure, accessible only to those willing to pick up the shell and listen.

It is as a dear friend (married and then in the finals days of her pregnancy) told me, “The only male-female friendships that do not change with marriage are those with your male family members.” Thank you, Lord, for my incredible brothers!

As I flip through my planner littered with “Save the Date” postcards, I look forward to celebrating the unions of hearts and lives. And as I make my travel plans I prepare for the loss of these friendships, or at least the loss of these relationships as I now know them.

I am beginning to realize this sense of loss, of drifting resulting from the morphing of my community neither dictates nor reflects the true state of my life and faith. I am finally at a point where I accept (without demands for change) the limitations and fallibility of this anchor, of community, and am trusting my ballast will not fail as I sail into unknown, open waters with little more than a compass and certainty that an unseen land, “home,” lies ahead.

Most mornings I awake and think, “Today. Today I will write.” But the day gets away from me: work and concern about not having enough work; exercise; phone tag with friends who, at times, seem so very distant; reading; fretting about what the future holds when the present often feels so barren. At some point the sun slinks away and exhaustion sets in. My bed beckons my heavy head and heart to seek shelter within its sheets and duvet. With windows wide open, letting in the night’s coolness, I whisper prayers dripping with thanks, questions and pleas.

It begins again the next morning. Words fail to be written down. Out of fear I refuse to open my journal, to let loose these words upon the page. Fear that once I sit down there will be nothing to write, thereby exposing myself as a fraud and the people who encourage(d) me to write as liars. Fear that if I pick up the pen my life will change in ways I can neither imagine nor control. So I settle for silence, for sabotaging that which my heart most desires.

Today. Today I woke up and declared, “Today. Today I will write.” No longer able to keep the words securely stowed in their proper place, I write. Whatever the outcome, fraud, liars, loss of all control, the words must breathe, must exist outside of me where fear no longer constricts and suffocates.

I started this blog with the intention of writing. This gave way to Project 365, a good exercise but for the fact that it became a means of posting content with fewer and fewer words; a slippery slope to no posts and no words.

Yesterday one of the people I trust most in this world challenged me to write honestly about now. Now, the moment-by-moment struggle to “wear myself.” So I return to the start and begin again, fresh.

I desire to write more often; but I do not. As of late life has had a way of making the the simple act of putting pen to paper seem more laborious and futile than ever.

Every deed and every relationship is surrounded by an atmosphere of silence. Friendship needs no words–it is solitude delivered from the anguish of loneliness.
~D. Hammarskjöld, Markings

Feel free to escape the written silence by enjoying a little noise from my two new mixes: “As of Late, part 1 and part 2“. They are compilations of many recent blogtracks with a few new ones sprinkled in. Happy listening!